“Die Ablösung – dissolution“

I am mother
My hands tear, burn, if I turn them away from you
I am mother

This video is part of my current art-project that deals with the dissolution of the mother-and-chlild union. One of the most fundamental charges, everybody has to deal with and overcome and, at the same time, one of the best hidden social tabus. There are no poems, no pieces of art that deal with the subject of a mother´s struggle and grief, when the child left – in one way or the other. I searched for expressions that help my mind to understand the new situation and to envolve. Thus I use universal elements like fire and the flow of water, to connect the individual situation to a higher context. The words are part of a poem that I wrote when my daughter was a baby child. The drawing of her, sleeping, dates back to the same periode. I transfered the picture to a wooden panel and carved in the lines by the help of a chain saw. Then I filled the lines with denatured alcohol and lightened them – picture and words turned to black. This docmentation of this performance is interlaced with the physical transformation of the sentence “I am mother“ by an arriving little creek hidden in the wood. The letters are “baked“ with self made sand-moulds (refering to the sandgames of little children at the playground).

 

 

 

 

 

BIOGRAPHY Tanja Leonhardt   
born 1966 in Groß-Gerau, Germany, married, two children
1991 Master of Fine Arts, University Mayence, with major subject calligraphy / typography.
Further education: gilding, wood and textile handling, video and photography as well as curses in philosophy and psychology.
Numerous exhibitions, art-performances and readings of own literary work.
Articles and lectures about art and the art of writing.
Current project: “Languages of silk in nature or the movements of the chain of signs“

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